The isotopes are not stored in paper bags but multilayered containers. For example the ex Lucas Heights material has been turned to glass and is surrounded by clay and a heavy metal casing as I understand. Several million years from now it might have deteriorated slightly but the contents will no longer be radioactive.

The material from hospital radiology units is currently stored in city basements themselves liable to flooding. Ironically Kimba's average rainfall is declining long term perhaps as a result of generating power with coal not uranium. At least this new objection doesn't invoke mythical stories of indigenous people itching to walk over the land.

FWIW Finland's new radioactive repository will be under the Baltic Sea. Kimba is a fair distance from the sea.

Ok, so since post is not quite on topic but:

I've often thought that the best place to store the world's nuclear waste would be in the somewhere deep in Antarctica because-

1) There's nothing much down there. If there was an incident then it wouldn't really matter because there is next to no living environment down there. And there's no rain to cause runoff into the greater environment the area (although there are incredible winds).

2) It's naturally extremely rugged and isolated. The only people who can access these regions are those backed money and expertise. It would be very difficult for politically motivated people, such as terrorists or activists, to access the waste site/material.

3) It's basically international land by treaty, although a handful of countries do claim of various sections of it. It's international nature means that it would be a good site for an internationally controlled/overseen dump.

4) By the shear size of the place, I assume that somewhere there would be some accessible (ie: not covered in miles of ice/sound) sound rock (sound from a geological prospective) to place a dump. This point is probably the weakest out of these four given- I really know next to nothing about geology, expert input is required here.

Of course, in reality a dump like this never happen due to politics. Indeed I vaguely remember reading that current established treaties already deal with nuclear issues and that I if remember correctly such a nuclear dump would be in violation of them. There is little chance of these treaties of this being changed to accommodate such a dump.

oops: "Ok, so since post is not quite on topic but:", should be "Ok, so this post is not quite on topic but:"

Tassewegian's post does it for me

This piece to me sounds like someone with irons in the fire dredging around looking for something negative to denigrate the project.

Nuclear waste is hardly waste, but rather unspent fuel that could power Australia for thousands of years. With material others pay us millions annually to store for them!

There's a lot of fact free fiction and quite blatant fearmongering written about nuclear waste, e.g., the isotopes the Author babbles on about can be collected/filtered out of unproccessed waste. Then used to irradiate kryovaced food. Making it keep for possible centuries.

And possible as long as the seal is intact. And any fridge free food just as fresh as the day it was sealed! Fresh/raw vegetables, fruit, meat and fish. Eggs? Hardboiled and then frozen? Them also!

Waste generally can now be very safely burnt and then burnt again and again in (bug free) unpressurised molten salt reactors where the material is purged with hydrogen and subjected to electrolysis.
Alan B.

Oh dear, ANSTO and the Kimba dump enthusiasts are in trouble. They were quite comfortable with the objections made by environmentalists and those pesky indigenous people. But this article is a problem, Not only does it come from a writer who is not even an anti-nuclear activist, but quite likely is actually pro nuclear.

The second problem is that he dares to actually mention the flooding, from a practical and understandable safety and geographical point of view - it is hard to dismiss his clear argument.

I did enjoy Taswegians comment about Kimba ''not getting much rainfall
, and ''not being near the sea'. Typical of the inanity of the pro nuclear comments that trivialise this otherwise serious journal.